Macedonia seeks acceptance

Macedonia’s renewed push to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has drawn bipartisan support on Capitol Hill, but its decades-long dispute with Greece remains a stubborn impediment.

With NATO members gathering in Chicago in just a month, Macedonian Defense Minister Fatmir Besimi met at the Pentagon on Monday with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to discuss the issue, which looms in large part because of the dispute over a seemingly trivial matter: Macedonia’s name.

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“Secretary Panetta told Minister Besimi that he looks forward to the country’s future accession to NATO,” Pentagon spokesman George Little said after the meeting in a statement that provided few details of the discussions.

The controversy stems from the 1991 breakup of Yugoslavia, which was divided into several nations, including Macedonia. But, directly to the south, Greece has its own region called Macedonia. Officials there have balked at the double use of the name — and have thwarted their neighbor to the north from joining NATO and the European Union until the matter is settled.

Besimi, who visited the United States in part as a final push to raise awareness of the issue before next month’s NATO summit, insists his country’s name in no way represents a territorial claim to the Greek region.

Membership in the alliance “would be a benefit — for Greece, for all countries in the region and for NATO,” Besimi told POLITICO during an interview at the Macedonian Embassy in Washington. “We can make it happen if we find the way by talking and discussing and looking at each other as neighbors.”

Macedonia is one of four countries actively seeking to join NATO. The others — Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia and Montenegro — still face hurdles, such as the completion of required action plans. For Macedonia, though, the only remaining obstacle is the dispute with Greece.

The country, with a population of just 2 million, has won considerable congressional support for its efforts to join the alliance. For instance, Indiana Sen. Dick Lugar, the ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) are pushing legislation that would call on President Barack Obama to put the issue on the agenda of next month’s NATO summit.

Last month, a 54-member, bipartisan congressional coalition also urged Obama to ensure that Macedonia receives a NATO bid.